2017 Coaching Carousel

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#5,051      
You're probably right about landing either one of those two guys, but Illinois opened up the check book for football hopefully they will for basketball.

They've dumped a truckload of $$$ into renovations over the last 2+ years. I don't think they go mid-major hire. I think they will be shooting for the moon.....JMO.
 
#5,052      
^ Tevo basically spelled out why I believe firmly in "beat the teams on your schedule" as being important, and you can't really ask much more of him in that department.

The BIGGEST area of concern for a coach when jumping from CAA to a P5 conference, in my opinion, is how they do handling a wider recruiting area, additional resources, etc. You're now recruiting nationally, not in driving distance (for the most part), bigger campuses and more distractions for your players, etc. You have to be able to manage a program and coordinate those sorts of details, which is where a lot of guys can find themselves trip up.

In my opinion, that is not something that feels like a risk with Keatts. Solid experience at Louisville (heck, UL is investing more into their program than we are, no?), high level success at lower levels as well, and so it boils down to if you really think he can't be competitive against the other coaches in the conference. For some, that may require tournament wins to prove it to yourself (I view an 8 point loss to a stacked, elite 8 bound Duke team last year as a positive for Keatts, seeing as he entered the game facing a 9.5 point spread (per this BR article). If you bet on UNCW in that game last year, you would've won money!

I just don't see any glaring holes in his resume right now, and if he can get a tournament win this year, I'm all in. You have to dig and point at the fact their defense isn't elite to find a hole, and point at no NCAAT wins* to find major issues on his resume.

* at a CAA school! Cuonzo got Tennessee with no NCAAT appearancesat an MVC school, so seems like some unfair expectations and inconsistent benchmarks being applied here
 
#5,054      
Umm, except for the most glaring hole of all: he hasn't coached a Power 5 school.

He's assistant coached in the P5, and this sounds like the joke with modern day entry level. "You need 5 years experience for this entry level job". He can't have P5 HC experience without someone giving him a P5 job at some point.

Archie Miller, Gregg Marshall, Monty Williams all haven't head coached a P5 school either. Are you turning away all of those candidates too? Bill Self hadn't when we hired him either.

Previous P5 HC experience is an unnecessary requirement you're imposing. You can use it as a way to order your candidates, that's your prerogative. But it's not necessarily an indicator of success, and the coaches who are incredibly successful at their P5 stops don't move around a whole lot except to go to blue bloods. People are afraid of mediocrity (yes mattcoldagelli, I know that'd be an upgrade for us right now ;) ) but want to hire guys from P5 who aren't winning their conferences, making deep tournament runs, just because they're already at the P5 level and we know they're "safe". OK! Your prerogative.

And did you even read my post? I pointed out the major differences between CAA and P5. It's resources. I said there's no reason not to believe he can't make that leap, with supporting logic. What more do you want? :tsk:
 
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#5,055      
I agree with what Tevo said 100% so I would not be bothered at all if Illinois hired Keatts. Having said that, I do believe that Whitman will make a serious pitch for a much bigger name. Of course similar to last time around, due to our program slippage he may not be able to secure his top candidates. Keatts may well end up being the new Illinois coach but he will almost certainly not be the first one offered. That said, he would be a pretty good fall back plan.
 
#5,056      
The right person for the job is the right person for the job. We won't get a perfect coach, they will have flaws, but whomever we get needs to be ready to coach well, recruit well, and handle adversity well.

Look at the Whitman hire, we went after bigger fish but he stood out for a reason, he was the right candidate. Not perfect, but the right hire.
 
#5,057      
As a disclaimer, I've watched maybe a handful of games at this point, I think 4? I don't want anyone to think I've watched their entire season or anything like that.

Offensively: Offensive rebounding, taking care of the ball, and shooting a lot of 3's. The 3 pt volume isn't a bad thing, considering they're making 36% of them as a team (their effective FG % is suuuuper good as a result of this). My gripe offensively would be that they don't seem to get to the line a whole lot.

They also do a pretty good job of forcing turnovers (speaks to their style) on the defensive, which is supported by the fact that they're 36th in total TOs forced and 56th in opponent TOV%. You can tell they press just looking at their team stats (or watching their games, but either way) due to the TOV% and also their foul rate (they foul a fair bit). One big thing/identity item defensively is that their opponents aren't shooting or making a whole lot of 3's against them, which is a huge deal in the modern era, and something Groce teams have a problem with (not that Groce is my baseline for comparison, just a common gripe folks have had). You can read into that however, but defending the 3point line is a big deal in this era.

They're also playing a pretty short rotation (only 7 guys with 15+ MPG, 8 in double digits (8th at exactly 10). To compare that to our squad, we're playing 10 at 13.5 mpg+ on the year.

I would encourage anyone, even if you're not going to watch Keatts or other candidates, to at least poke around on sports reference. Bunch of really interesting info available there for free. Here's a link to season stats for all of D1 on one page (with links to opponent stats, and advanced/advanced opponent stats as well). Clicking on any team will take you to a detailed page for that squad specifically with individual player breakdowns and such as well, really really nice resource.

The breakdown is appreciated. At least I can tell that you have a reason and basis for why you think he may be a good candidate. I think there are many people here who are getting on his bandwagon because of word of mouth, so it is refreshing to get a breakdown of some of his team's strengths. My concern offensively would be a reliance on the 3 pt. shot. That famous phrase of live by the 3 and die by the 3 is not a way to sustain a program for the long haul. I think you're starting to see that a little bit with Michigan now.
 
#5,058      
They're also playing a pretty short rotation (only 7 guys with 15+ MPG, 8 in double digits (8th at exactly 10). To compare that to our squad, we're playing 10 at 13.5 mpg+ on the year.

I would honestly rather an eight man rotation than a ten unless we are pressing every position and trying to score 100 points where stamina is an issue. I think there are too many egos and benching hot hands in trying to build an army for the future instead of playing 7-8 guys who just get the job done. Sure, foul trouble or an injury hurts and that's the risk, but I've seen enough of guys playing after not seeing the floor for games at a time in key moments (even starting). JMO though.
 
#5,059      
:hand:
No reason to think that either of these guys are possibilities or would be interested.
That aside, I wouldn't want Drew. It is only a matter of time before things blow up in his face at Baylor. It's Baylor. The place is not known for being the cleanest athletic department. And I'm not referring to just recently either. Drew himself has had some questions around him and indisputably stood by an assistant coach that tried to recruit by threatening to have a player deported if he didn't commit to Baylor.
 
#5,060      
I may have missed it if somebody posted this already, but what about Jeff Capel? I mean following coach K will be a tough act to follow and coaching in the BIG I think would be appealing to him if the money was right.
 
#5,061      
The breakdown is appreciated. At least I can tell that you have a reason and basis for why you think he may be a good candidate. I think there are many people here who are getting on his bandwagon because of word of mouth, so it is refreshing to get a breakdown of some of his team's strengths. My concern offensively would be a reliance on the 3 pt. shot. That famous phrase of live by the 3 and die by the 3 is not a way to sustain a program for the long haul. I think you're starting to see that a little bit with Michigan now.

That's not entirely accurate, Michigan's not fading because of their offense. They are hurting because they don't have McGary or GRIII on defense. Their offense is top 15 on kenpom (currently 11). I never understood why Beilein has so much trouble recruiting strong big men, because even freaking Ricky Doyle was effective in that offense. His runner up team a few years ago was #39 in defense and #1 offensively. So just a drop in defense has hurt them, but they're still doing fine offensively. Also, if Keatts ended up being Beilein and recruited better than he has, we'd be in business.
 
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#5,062      
I may have missed it if somebody posted this already, but what about Jeff Capel? I mean following coach K will be a tough act to follow and coaching in the BIG I think would be appealing to him if the money was right.

Capel's been discussed, a lot of people tie his OU success to Blake Griffin exclusively and don't think he's more than that (I disagree), and his poor run as the interim HC (interim HCing ANYWHERE is a hard gig) at Duke quieted discussion on him, but I still think he'd be a solid candidate. Really nice work at VCU, solid run at OU with a questionable end, and one of the better recruiters in the country.
 
#5,063      
Do you believe there is any impropriety in college basketball recruiting? It seems to me that the head of the best postgraduate academy for basketball who places multiple players into P5 programs each year would be susceptible to the recruiting game. I have no knowledge of Keatts being involved in anything, this is my own inference based on connecting the above dots. I don't even care if he was involved with shady recruiting, just saying it should be considered in the risk assessment.

My second point was that he went from no college coaching experience to becoming an assistant at Louisville right when they received 3 big time Hargrave recruits in his first two years. Once again, it is my inference that he may have be offered a position for recruiting purposes. I don't know if this is true, but I would consider that amother risk to his becoming HC at Illinois.

I don't know why this is considered baseless guessing when posters are calling him the next Bill Self. I'm just providing my own concerns for discussion. This is an Illini message board, I did not mean to imply I have inside knowledge about Keatts or intend to slander him. It's ok to discuss both potential positives and negatives about candidates.

Let's keep in mind that Self had been a P5 assistant for 10 years, turned two programs around as HC over 7 years, and reached the elite 8 with Tulsa before becoming the HC at Illinois. That's a far cry from Keatts resume.

Rozier committed to Louisville before attending Hargrave, which he did for a post high school year due to grades.
 
#5,064      
I think this is extremely unlikely (like, less than 1 percent chance), but what if Monty Williams is the hire and he brings in a staff of Randy Ayers and Anthony Grant to go with Jamal Walker, then adds Ryan Ayers as directer of bball operations? That would be a dynamite staff and send a huge message about where the program is heading.
 
#5,065      
The breakdown is appreciated. At least I can tell that you have a reason and basis for why you think he may be a good candidate. I think there are many people here who are getting on his bandwagon because of word of mouth, so it is refreshing to get a breakdown of some of his team's strengths. My concern offensively would be a reliance on the 3 pt. shot. That famous phrase of live by the 3 and die by the 3 is not a way to sustain a program for the long haul. I think you're starting to see that a little bit with Michigan now.

The future of the game at both the pro and college levels is 3pt-reliant offenses. Analytics are driving trends and demanding the reevaluation of conventional basketball wisdom. Going forward, the game is going to be all about maximizing true shooting efficiency, forcing opponents to shoot from 15-19 feet, and generating more possessions than your opponent. There are multiple strategic paths to achieve those outcomes (which is why only pace adjusted stats should really be considered when looking at team trends). At the end of the day, though, the main points are: 1) confine your shots to within 3 feet of the basket or beyond the 3pt line, 2) create offense in transition (because it leads to layups, open 3-pointers, and free throws), 3) force opposing offenses to take inefficient shots, 4) use your possessions in a more efficient way than your opponent, 5) force more turnovers than you commit (and, really, bad shots count almost the same way - essentially, if you have a greater number of efficiently used possessions than your opponent, you win most of the time).
 
#5,066      
Capel's been discussed, a lot of people tie his OU success to Blake Griffin exclusively and don't think he's more than that (I disagree), and his poor run as the interim HC (interim HCing ANYWHERE is a hard gig) at Duke quieted discussion on him, but I still think he'd be a solid candidate. Really nice work at VCU, solid run at OU with a questionable end, and one of the better recruiters in the country.

Capel inherited a good OU team from Sampson and eventually ruined it. No thanks.
 
#5,067      
The future of the game at both the pro and college levels is 3pt-reliant offenses. Analytics are driving trends and demanding the reevaluation of conventional basketball wisdom. Going forward, the game is going to be all about maximizing true shooting efficiency, forcing opponents to shoot from 15-19 feet, and generating more possessions than your opponent. There are multiple strategic paths to achieve those outcomes (which is why only pace adjusted stats should really be considered when looking at team trends). At the end of the day, though, the main points are: 1) confine your shots to within 3 feet of the basket or beyond the 3pt line, 2) create offense in transition (because it leads to layups, open 3-pointers, and free throws), 3) force opposing offenses to take inefficient shots, 4) use your possessions in a more efficient way than your opponent, 5) force more turnovers than you commit (and, really, bad shots count almost the same way - essentially, if you have a greater number of efficiently used possessions than your opponent, you win most of the time).

Yeah, looking at UNCW's sports-reference advanced stat pages, you can see some where they're clearly aware of what analytics tell you about the game nowadays. As I'd said in my original post, they're lacking in the getting to the line part of the equation, but it's not actually hurting their efficiency, so hard to argue. Surprisingly, UCLA is also not getting to the line at a high rate (lower than UNCW's!) despite being the #1 offense.
 
#5,069      
I think this is extremely unlikely (like, less than 1 percent chance), but what if Monty Williams is the hire and he brings in a staff of Randy Ayers and Anthony Grant to go with Jamal Walker, then adds Ryan Ayers as directer of bball operations? That would be a dynamite staff and send a huge message about where the program is heading.

If we hire any NBA guy, you're going to see a star studded lineup of assistants. Probably not as loaded as that trio. I also don't think Walker stays if we hire an NBA coach, or someone like Bennett/Marshall. Those guys are gonna have so much pull that they are going to want 100% control--as they should. Walker's chances of staying if we hire a P5 or higher coach are essentially 0, with Cuonzo as the exception, maybe.

The trio you've spelled out would be very reminiscent of the Lovie hiring. Definitely a very Whitman-esque outcome. Hard to argue with that staff as a whole.
 
#5,070      
The breakdown is appreciated. At least I can tell that you have a reason and basis for why you think he may be a good candidate. I think there are many people here who are getting on his bandwagon because of word of mouth, so it is refreshing to get a breakdown of some of his team's strengths. My concern offensively would be a reliance on the 3 pt. shot. That famous phrase of live by the 3 and die by the 3 is not a way to sustain a program for the long haul. I think you're starting to see that a little bit with Michigan now.

Good point, look how much Villanova struggles shooting all those 3s.
 
#5,072      
I miss Augie slipping screens for a dunk.

I can't remember the last time we had something like that under Groce.

Maybe Meyers did it a few a time I'm not sure,
I think I saw Mav slips screens twice during the NU game--once for a dunk and one for a layup, both within the span of a couple minutes. Then NU wised up and started defending it better.

Sent from my MotoE2(4G-LTE) using Tapatalk
 
#5,073      
I've been thinking about this "He coaches in a lower conference" thinking. Coaching in the CAA might theoretically mean a variety of things:

  1. The opposing coaches are not as "good" as in the P5 conferences.
  2. The players are not as initially talented as those entering P5 schools.
  3. The players are likely not as big, tall, or athletic as those entering P5 schools.
  4. The facilities you have -- training, video, technology, transportation -- are not likely as robust as at P5 schools.

But all of those things should be, generally speaking, as true about one program as they are about another. UNCW would not have to face stellar athletes on a night-by-night basis, but then UNCW would not HAVE stellar athletes on their team, either. For every advantage that UNCW might gain by "only" having to play CAA schools, there is an equal disadvantage that UNCW should have by being a CAA school itself.

The coach is the one exception. The coach (and his staff) can in fact be a huge difference maker. he can be a better communicator, a better teacher, a better recruiter, etc. That is probably true of every conference -- most of the schools in a given conference will have a lot of similarities in terms of the facilities, salaries, training techniques, accommodations, etc. It's up to the coaches to teach better and recruit better to really make a difference.

So it seems to me only logical to focus on conference records when you want to evaluate how good a coach is. Putting Izzo in charge of the average CAA roster would not net the same results as with his MSU roster. Odds are, that CAA roster would not be as good a team. If they played a host of other P5 teams, they'd likely lose a bunch. But, I think we'd likely say that the Izzo-coached group might begin to out-perform the other CAA teams, due to Izzo's initial skill as a coach, but then also due to his ability to recruit a higher-caliber player (within the realm of those considering CAA schools in the first place).

So given that, when you look at the Big Ten right now, and see Groce struggling, you see that he is actually winning conference games pretty similarly to how he performed in the "lower-level" MAC. (I'm discounting some losses last season due to the crazy injuries, and thus am over-weighting his first three seasons and this season). He was not a world-beater in the MAC conference games, and he's not doing any better (and only somewhat worse, in the B1G). I'd contend that given the "access" to better quality recruits and better facilities, and yet facing "better" coaches and opposing programs, he's the same coach.

All of that leads me to believe that a guy like Keatts, who has to deal with the same limitations as his conference opponents, and yet who races out to the front of that conference pretty much right out of the blocks and then maintains that position for three seasons, is likely to be successful in whatever conference he is placed. Yes, more of his opposing coaches are likely to be good, so his advantage may decline somewhat, but his skills will remain.

Note: Certainly there can be bad fits and bad luck where previously successful guys just seem to "lose it" for a bit (see Weber at the end of his Illinois career), but across a large sample size of many coaches and many years, these things seem to find their level (see Weber "finding it" again at KSU).

That same reasoning is also why I'm not as excited about Cuonzo: He'll likely be the same guy with the same results at Illinois as at Tennessee and Cal -- solid recruiting, good teams, top half of the conference, off and on tournament appearances with an occasional win. All of that is a LOT better than Illinois has seen recently, but we'll quickly grow impatient for every-year NCAA appearances.
Thanks, Tevo, for taking the time to put into words almost exactly my reasoning for being all for Keatts as at or near the top of the list of coaches I'd want for Illinois. When you look closely at his resume, he's got everything you could ever want for a guy to make the jump from a lower level coaching gig to P5 coaching. He's been successful at every level he's coached at so far AND he's had plenty of exposure as an assistant to another very successful program and recruiting at that level. Many of the most successful coaches over the long term at P5 schools have a similar background and results prior to their first P5 coaching opportunity - John Beilein & Bo Ryan and two good examples from our own conference.
 
#5,074      
For My $ Marshall is the home run hire

I said it when Weber was let go and still for so today...Gregg Marshall is the best candidate out there and IF you can pull him in you are virtually guaranteeing a program with on court success. I am very intrigued by Keatts as well and think he is almost as good a candidate on paper albeit slightly less proven.

I personally don't care about NBA guys at all and would take both of the aforementioned over Hoiberg although I would not consider him a bad hire. I would put Martin in the category of not a bad hire (everyone would love the B1G and Illinois/Midwest connections) either but I hope/think Whitman can do better.

This entire process is very odd as the fan base has months to realize a new coach is likely coming and has had much time to vet out their favorites and shortcomings of candidates for the replacement. It makes Whitman's job that much more difficult imo.
 
#5,075      
Next Coach and Recruits

Oh, and let me add. I absolutely do not believe you can factor in who is hired and whether that can keep members of the next recruiting class. Talk of retaining Walker or hiring Martin because he could keep members of the current seem silly to me.

Of course, if Whitman can keep members of a solid class together then great but his 1st priority needs to be finding the best coach and allowing him to have his staff in place that fits his needs. If that coach is Cuonzo Martin in Whitman's opinion so be it but that decision cannot be based on keeping recruits now but on the entirety of hiring the best coach for the future of the program.

I will be ecstatic if the Illini could get Gregg Marshall and would risk losing the entire recruiting class if that is what it took because I know he would get the program where it needed to be.
 
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